


The Invention of Music

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, and blankets, not very long after Eden, please do not sing this song where anyone can hear you, use of animal skins for clothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: Eve is having a problem.  Unknown to her, she also has observers.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80
Collections: SOSH - Guess the Author #11 "Firsts"





	The Invention of Music

When Adam and Eve left the garden, the cave had been downright providential.

Maybe. Providence wasn’t speaking to anyone right now. Be that as it may, the cave was definitely a stroke of  _ luck, _ as it had a somewhat indirect hole in the ceiling that did not sluice rain directly onto the living quarters, but took most of the smoke from Adam’s fire—and in the last few months, it had definitely been  _ Adam’s _ fire, because Eve had discovered herself too exhausted to do anything she didn’t strictly have to.

And now she was even  _ more _ exhausted.

Adam was stretched out across the fire from her, wrapped in a zebra skin. They had, with some trial and error, figured out ways to preserve the skins so they did not smell the way the lion skin had, but at the cost of quite a lot of the skins’ hair, and therefore warmth. Which meant that the fire was necessary, and Eve’s back was considerably warmer than her front.

Which  _ should _ mean that Cain would be comfortable. But he wasn’t. He manifestly wasn’t.

Eve muttered, “Oh, go the fuck to sleep,” and felt guilty about it. It was a deeply unpleasant new sensation, guilt. She missed not having any.

And it was more of a problem because when she felt guilt, there wasn’t always anything to really feel guilty over. Cain couldn’t understand her. She felt instinctively that someday he  _ would, _ but right now he was scarcely bigger than a wildcat, squirmy and short-limbed with a startling cloud of black hair and eyes that had slowly started to focus on her when she held him. He had learned to smile, and even to giggle, but there was no talking yet.

It seemed a ridiculously inconvenient way to build a human being, and Eve resented it. Not Cain himself, but  _ it, _ the whole—predicament. Situation. Whatever you wanted to call it.

There was, really, no reason not to repeat herself as she rocked Cain back and forth, trying vainly to get him to latch onto her breast rather than squirm. “Go the fuck to sleep,  _ please _ go the fuck to sleep—”

On  _ sleep, _ Eve found herself  _ intoning _ the word rather than simply speaking it, and tried again, intrigued. “Goooo—the fuuuuuck—to sleeeeeep—pleeeaase—””

Cain hiccupped and gazed up at her and, for a wonder, stopped crying.

~

“It’s not exactly celestial harmonies,” said one of the observers outside the cave, dubiously. “Can you actually call it  _ music?” _

“They’re not exactly celestial,” retorted his companion. “Why would they sing in celestial harmonies? No, this is something new. Some new—human thing.” Crawly watched Aziraphale closely.

He seemed—intrigued. Not condescending, or contemptuous, or anything you might expect from an angel. Just intrigued. “What would you call it?” Aziraphale said finally.

“I’m going to call it a go-the-fuck-to-sleep,” Crawly said, “and I’ll bet you so does she, because it seems to have worked.”

Inside the cave, Eve slowly stopped singing the first lullaby as Cain’s eyes closed.


End file.
